


ugly christmas sweater weather

by cpt_winniethepooh



Series: Happy Steve Bingo fills [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Ugly Holiday Sweaters, Ugly Sweaters, appreciation for knitwear things and christmas sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:52:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh
Summary: Bucky LOVES ugly Christmas sweaters, and somehow he manages to make Steve appreciate them, too.





	ugly christmas sweater weather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dixiehellcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/gifts).



> SO this is my fifth and final fill for the [Happy Steve Bingo](https://happystevebingo.tumblr.com/), for my free card, for which I chose "Christmas". 
> 
> Inspired by our conversation with @[dixiehellcat ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat)under my second [Happy Steve Bingo fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16462295). 

"These are so... " Steve trailed off.

"Ugly?" Bucky asked. "That's the idea, pal."

"Yeah, but who would wear these?"

"I would," Bucky shrugged.

"...of course you would, what was I thinking," Steve said only to the back of Bucky, because Bucky was already making his way into the store.

"Oh my God, Steve, touch this," Bucky said, running his fingers along the fabric. Steve followed his lead and indeed: the knitwear was gentle, not rough like back in his time, and so, so warm. "This is the best thing ever."

"Try it on?" Steve suggested, because he was unable to say no to Bucky. Not now, not ever.

"Only if you do too," Bucky grinned.

"Okay," Steve naively said, because the other thing he was unable to say no had always been a dare.

And then Bucky began hauling every.single.ugly.christmas.sweater. into the dressing room. And the store had a TON. And sure Steve had seen his fair share of Christmas novelty things, but these sweaters were absolutely _horrendous_. Oversized reindeer heads, dancing polar bears, Santa Claus himself, all in gaudy, loud colors and _sequins_ , in gratuitous amounts.

The knitting and the material itself made up for what they lacked in style, though.

"You need this," Bucky concluded for a navy, oversized sweater that had silver stars and a snowman in a red scarf – all made of sequins, of course. "And this," he lifted a red and grey one with dancing pigeons.

"Do I?"

"Yes, because I want to borrow them and say I'm wearing my boyfriend's clothes."

"Okay," Steve agreed easily, because _boyfriend_ , and Bucky's eyes flashed with mirth at how fast he managed to convince Steve.

"Don't we want a size smaller?" Steve hazarded to ask.

"Nope. We are not getting on with your tendency to wear a size S just to make your muscles look better."

"That isn't..."

"Now my turn, get out," Bucky ordered, and ended up selecting a black hoodie with actual fairy lights sewn onto a christmas tree – the batteries were missing from the control panel, but that was easy enough to solve. And another one with the words "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS EMOTIONAL AND ECONOMICAL STABILITY" in wonderful cursive, of course decorated with a bunch of reindeers and mistletoe. And a third one with a mistletoe hanging from the sleeve, like pom-poms.

And a fourth one that he spotted on the way out, and this wasn't even a Christmas sweater, just an oversized hoodie, the softest and most delicate of them all, knitted from ombre peacock wool in beautiful muted gold and royal purple and forest green and deep blue. This one Steve too would've picked for Bucky too, because it made him look young and carefree, like the old Bucky. Well, the old Bucky, before Steve realized how much pretending he had been doing for Steve's sake.

"What's with the face?" Bucky asked him once again in the changing room, admiring himself in the mirror.

"I was just thinking about our past," Steve said. Then, when Bucky's face turned serious, he hastily added, "Not like that! Just, this hoodie is something you would've liked back then, too, I think."

Bucky considered his reflection. "Probably, yeah. I mean, we didn't have shit like this in the thirties," he nodded at their shopping cart full of sweaters. "But this is nice."

"You are nice," Steve countered.

"You are gorgeous," Bucky shot back, and grabbed Steve by the hem of his shirt to haul him into the cabin and kiss him senseless.

"Not in those I'm not," Steve said when they pulled apart, nodding at their cart, and Bucky smacked his arm.

"You'll love them, just you wait."

The first snow came a few days later, and with that, the ice-cold wind howling. Bucky not only wore his peacock hoodie, but also an oversized grey cardigan over it that had rainbow buttons. Steve had no idea where _that_ came from, or when, for that matter, but if Bucky was one thing, it was resourceful.

And warm, apparently.

Steve envied him until Bucky attacked him out of the blue and pulled the navy-with-stars-and-snowman sweater over his head. "Stop shivering, Rogers, you are making _me_ cold!"

"I wasn't," Steve protested.

"You were, on the _inside_ ; and you could never lie to save your life, especially not to me."

Which was fair, Steve supposed, and resigned himself to be especially grandpa-like with his slacks and knitted sweater.

But as it turned out, Bucky had been onto something, and the sweater was _amazing_. It may have looked, well... ugly, but Steve wondered why he never went for these things before. Why on earth had he been wearing tight shirts? Who started that trend? It sure as hell wasn't him.

Wearing a henley and then the hoodies from Bucky felt like constantly being hugged. Not in an invasive or overwhelming way, but in a way that Steve had been missing all along. And suddenly the winter wasn't so horrible anymore, when it meant he could cozy up on the couch with Bucky and be very warm and very soft with him.

Another added bonus was that Bucky was much more approachable in a sweater. Not mentally, because the Bucky of the present took no shit but stood up for what he wanted, so if he wanted hugs, he got hugs. If he didn't want hugs, he refused outright. Which, by the way, was a breath of fresh air for Steve as he found the new pathways of the 21st century hard to navigate, but he could read the new Bucky almost as well as the old by the end of their first year together.

Physically, though, Bucky was built just as strong as Steve, with hard muscles and broad shoulders and a metal arm, so embracing him felt really different than from before. Until the sweaters came along, when they both became squishy and inviting.

Steve requested they do nothing but watch science shows all day under a fluffy blanket, because he could sleep beautifully on Bucky's padded shoulder when he was wearing one of his Christmas sweaters. And when Christmas came, he got the most amazing present he could’ve never asked for (other than Bucky back, of course): a knitted, deep fuschia hoodie, one he could wear _after_ the holidays, too.

“Especially for Valentine’s day,” Bucky lewdly said.

Bucky, for his part, wore the one with the mistletoe hanging from the sleeve and requested a kiss every five minutes – a wish Steve was more than happy to provide.

And they had their first of their many merry Christmases in the 21st century.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I love ugly Christmas sweaters. There is just something awfully comforting about wearing warm, oversized and extremely unattractive hoodies when it's freezing outside.  
> Disclaimer: all of the sweaters mentioned here are made-up, but if anybody knows where I can get literally ANY of them, I'd... write a fic for you?  
> Also you lot seemed to enjoy Steve's fascination with sweaters, so here you go.
> 
> Come hang out with me on [tumblr](http://cpt-winniethepooh.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
